1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for producing an unsaturated alcohol. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method for producing an unsaturated alcohol which is a hydrated oligomer of a conjugated alkadiene, which comprises reacting a conjugated alkadiene and water in the presence of carbon dioxide by means of a palladium compound and a phosphorus compound having at least one trivalent phosphorus-oxygen single bond, as catalyst. Further, the present invention relates to a novel palladium complex, a phosphonite compound, and a method for producing a saturated alcohol useful, for example, as a starting material for preparation of various organic compounds for special uses, which comprises hydrogenating the unsaturated alcohol obtained by the method of the present invention.
2. Discussion of Background
Unsaturated alcohols, particularly octadienols including octa-2,7-dien-1-ol, are compounds important for chemical industry as intermediates useful for producing n-octanol or its esters.
As a method for producing such unsaturated alcohols, a method is known which comprises reacting conjugated alkadienes and water in the presence of carbon dioxide by means of a palladium compound and a phosphine compound as catalyst, to produce alkadienols as hydrated dimers, for example, from Chemical Communications 330 (1971) and Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. 10565/1975. In such a case, as a phosphine compound used as a ligand of the palladium catalyst, a triaryl phosphine is known to be advantageous. However, in this case, further improvements are desired in the yield of alkadienols and in the selectivity for the desired octa-2,7-dien-1-ol.